


I need him, you must understand!

by LowlandSassanach



Series: Maisie Hotchner [1]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Gen, Jealousy, Kidnapping, M/M, Mpreg, Obsession, Spencer Reid Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2019-10-01 00:52:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17234348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LowlandSassanach/pseuds/LowlandSassanach
Summary: What if, during his marriage, Aaron Hotchner had gotten David Rossi pregnant? What if they'd had a daughter that Haley had agreed to adopt and raise? What if David was forbidden from visiting the child or even seeing her? What if he had to pretend to be "Uncle Dave"? And what if, when Haley died, Aaron starts up a relationship with Spencer Reid? How would David Rossi act, when he discovers Aaron got Spencer pregnant? This is the imagining of that obsession.





	1. I love him, but don't know him

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing

David Rossi, legendary ladies man, was having an affair. David Rossi was in love. David Rossi was...pregnant.

He'd been having an affair for the past year with his married colleague, Aaron Hotchner, and had inevitably fallen for the other agent. What's worse was it was plain for all to see. When they were in the bullpen, when they were on a case, even just the way they went off to the bathroom for a quickie. David had fallen head over heels for Aaron.

So when he woke up on a case, next to Aaron as always, and immediately ran to the toilet to puke he was happy that he might be pregnant, that Aaron might finally be ready to leave Haley and come out properly as bisexual. He hadn't factored in that Aaron didn't love him as he loved Aaron.

The day came and he got into Aaron's car. "Aaron, we need to tell Haley about us...now..." Aaron stared at Dave.

"Why? Why, ruin a good thing now?" Aaron took Dave's face in his hands, "What's changed that you want to tell Haley now?" He was concerned, Dave knew what he about to tell him but he still got sick to the pit of his stomach. It just dawned on him Aaron might not feel the same way. 

"Remember the case where I spent most of the time emptying my stomach in our room? Usually in the morning?" Aaron nodded, he'd always assumed it was from food poisoning. "Well, uh, we're having a baby..." Dave's smile disappeared as Aaron's hands were removed from his face and onto the steering wheel as he started the car. "Where are we going Aaron."

His eyes shining with unshed tears Dave waited for Aaron's reply. "Planned Parenthood." was the only two words to come out of Aaron's mouth. He looked furious.

Dave knew it was probably not for that but he asked anyway: "to confirm my pregnancy before we tell Haley?"

Aaron scoffed "No, to abort before Haley finds out." With that Dave's heart sank like a stone, Aaron didn't love him back and didn't want their child.

"Aaron , stop the car and let me out." Dave said, more forcefully than he'd ever said anything in his life, "I'm not asking, I'm telling you I want out of this car."

As soon as Aaron stopped the car Dave jumped out and didn't even notice that he was getting wet from the Virginia rain. Thankfully it hid his tears.

So this was his life now, trying to hide his growing belly from his colleagues and from Aaron, but at home he let loose. he held his little Bambino in his hands, felt them kick and toned to experience this with Aaron.

In the eighth month of his pregnancy he witnessed perhaps the biggest fight any of them had seen Haley and Aaron have, in unit chief Burgess' office. He'd been called in and Haley started to scream at him, he knew then that Aaron had told her. If Burgess hadn't have been there he can only imagine what Haley would have done. 

In the end Haley said that David couldn't very well raise a baby and be an FBI agent, and he had to concede that fact, what she suggested floored him; let her adopt the baby and Aaron will acknowledge them as his own child. Defeated Dave nods. He knows it's for the best, but if that's true then why is his heart aching?

Finally on the 7th of November 1989 at 11 am David Rossi goes into labour. Since there's no birth canal it was always a c-section for him, but as he's about to go in Aaron and Haley arrive and seen Aaron's face makes him more determined than ever to have their child. 

And so a daughter is born, and before Dave can see her they whisk her away, side she's being adopted there's no need to let him see her, but they don't understand that Dave's loved her from the moment he found out he was pregnant with her. "May I see her?" He asks one of the nurses, groggily. "To say goodbye?" 

She looks to the doctor and nods, fetching the little bundle and carrying it over to Dave. He takes her gratefully and gently strokes her face, "Well, Bambina, it's our first and last day together. But don't worry: papa's putting you in Daddy's arms, You'e going to live with daddy..." at that point his emotions overwhelmed him and he started crying. 

While he recovered from his surgery Haley and Aaron came and took the baby home with them.


	2. God help me, and my daughter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rossi returns to the BAU after having his daughter, and inadvertently sees the Hotchners playing happy families with his child, he retires as a result. 15 years later he is reinstated to find Aaron divorced and in love with someone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing.

On the 15th November at 8:30am David Rossi walked into the bullpen and eyed the concerned faces around him. Everyone knew that the 'surgery' had been his and Aaron's child being born, they were all profilers after all. 

Donald MacCue came up to him at the coffee station. "I'd stay here if I were you, Aaron and Haley are at his desk showing off their new daughter. I think it might be too hard for you."

As he added sugar to his coffee he turned to the other agent, "Don, I'm not gonna fall to pieces seeing them playing happy families. Don't forget I signed away my parental rights to her. She's Haley's not mine." Although that was all true a part of Rossi ached to say that. It started to physically hurt the closer he got to Aaron's desk. "Hey Aaron, Haley. How's the little Bambina doing?" he tried to see her as a bundle in Haley's arms, all he could see was a tuft of dark hair.

"Little Maisie is doing just fine. She's settling into our house and you should see her drink from her bottle, little scamp." Haley smiled down at Maisie. 

"Maisie..."David seemed to roll the name around in his head. "I like that name...suits her..." Haley's face darkened.

"Yeah? Well even if you didn't like it there's nothing you can do about it. You have signed her over to me...remember that." Dave looked down. "And no, you can't hold her." That hurt Dave more than anything else to be honest. Aaron looked at him apologetically, but nothin could make the hurt go away. Instead Dave crossed the bullpen and to started on his paperwork, his eyes brimming with unshed tears which spilled when he looked up and saw Don holding his daughter when he was all but forbidden to do. 

On the next case he assumed he'd room with Aaron, and was disappointed when Burgess informed him he'd be rooming with Martin Compton instead. So Dave knocked on the door when he knew Don MacCue was at breakfast. 

"I take it you don't want to room with me anymore." his voice never wavered but his bottom lip quivered with suppressed emotion. "Did I mean anything to you?"

Aaron looked down and then at Dave, putting his hands on Dave's arms. "Honestly? I felt, lust and really good while I was fucking you, but feelings? Like love? No. I didn't feel that. You mean more to me than you know. Maisie is amazing and I'm gonna love raising her. I'm sorry you won't get to but I really shouldn't have asked you to abort her...I'm sorry." And with that he left Dave in the hotel room to cry.

When Dad arrived home he made plans, set up a secret bank account and started saving up and within 3 years he was up $250,000 and should be ready to retire. He also had enough stories to write and sell some good books. 

In those 3 years between 1989 and 1992 he'd watched Maisie being raised with him being called "Uncle Davie".

He stopped by Aaron in the hallway, "she looks more and more like you everyday...I see she has eyeglasses though, that's neither of us..." Dave was stopped when Aaron coughed and pulled out eyeglasses from his breast pocket. 

Aaron laughed, "I have been inside you. I looked you in the eye when we fucked and yet, you had no idea I wore contacts?!" He smiled and looked into Dave eyes. "Is there a reason you stopped me to talk about Maisie?"

Dave drew in a shuddering breath and let it out. "For three years I had to watch you two playing happy families with my daughter, so I saved..." Aaron's head snapped up "..to retire early. So I don't have to see the man I love everyday take care of our daughter with the woman who he chose. I've already told Burgess what I'm planning, and Jason is letting me use his cabin until I get a more permanent place." He starts to cry, "You know what's funny? I signed my rights over so that I could stay an FBI agent but all I want now as Maisie with me...calling me papa..."

Aaron looked down, Dave's tears started to streak his face and he closed his eyes. All of a sudden he felt Aaron's lips on his and pulled back, "Are you sure?"

"it'd just be one time...I don't want to start the affair again but...I'm willing to give you a special, going away present..."

Dave scoffed and turned. "Well, I didn't think you'd start up the affair again but I thought you at least had some feeling in that body of yours..."

And having said his piece Dave walked out of the FBI building, never to return...

 

15 years later

Dave got a call, Jason Gideon was missing and Aaron was on leave with Haley, Maisie and Jack...they were begging for him to come back. He weighed it up, if Haley and Aaron had another child then what would have happened to him, was he still as beautiful? 

Dave made his mind up. Seeing how Aaron turned out would be amazing and he needed to see Maisie...

Dave smiled at Aaron when he got there on Wednesday. He was then invited into his office when Aron started telling him. "Haley walked out...the job..." he sighed and Dave's heart leapt within his chest. "Maisie's 18...in November. She goes to college in the fall, Virginia Tech. She's so smart..." Aaron chuckles and pours himself and Dave a drink of bourbon and hands it to Dave who smiles at Maisie's school picture on his desk.

"She looks just like you." Dave smiled at Aaron. "I'm sorry she walked out on you."

Aaron shrugged, "To be honest I'm just glad she let me see Maisie and Jack," he takes a sip of his bourbon and looks at Dave, "She was already encouraging me to take a desk job for years with Maisie growing up but her getting pregnant herself made it worse. Shortly after Jack was born she made me choose: her or the job. I chose the job, got a divorce for dessert." he breathes out a mirthless laugh and instead, pulls the door open, "let me introduce you to the rest of the team."

Dave met all of the team except one, but he found out who that was when he heard the voice: "I'd love to pick your brain about all your cases..." Spencer Reid was rambling again, Aaron put a hand on his shoulder, to stop him. 

"Spencer, you can quiz Dave on the jet...calm down." Aaron looked at Spencer with something in his eyes, made Dave feel sick. It was love. 

Aaron kissed Spencer's cheek. 

"We have a jet?" Dave didn't want Aaron to know he was still in love with him, not if he wanted to get close to him through Spencer Reid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun, dun, dun! Be sure to come back!


	3. my daughter, my pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After all those years Rossi finally meets his daughter again. And he and Haley have a heart to heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing but Maisie.

He walked into the bullpen and saw the eyes first. His breath hitched and he thought back to the day she was born. Her beautiful eyes staring up at him in wonder. His daughter. 

Haley was with her, her eyes daring him to come closer, she was divorced from Aaron but she still hated him. She hated Spencer too from what he saw of them.

He'd learned that while Spencer and Aaron loved each other they weren't in a relationship, but that they loved each other was beyond obvious. The stolen glances, the kisses to each other's cheeks, they might both be single but they were still behaving as though they were having an affair. And it killed David.

Spencer and Aaron were there and watching Maisie as she excitedly told the whole bullpen about her first class in her chosen major: Ancient Civilisations. They'd started out with Ancient Mesopotamia and were working their way back from there. Boy, was she excited. She rambled on excitedly about the Mesopotamians and their culture for an hour. David could've listened to her all day.

After she was done he approached her, "Hey Maisie, I don't know if you remember me but I was a friend of your father's back in the day..."

"Of course, Uncle Dave. I remember you. Dad kept talking about you after you retired of course. Forever going on about how you were one of the best and how it was a shame you retired." David got a strange sense of satisfaction from that but she burst his little bubble, "Of course that was before he met Uncle Spence. Now it's just all about how smart uncle Spence is." He was careful not to let his smile falter. He knew what he had to do.

"You look just like him." He smiles and his hand shakes at his side: he's fighting the urge to reach out and stroke her face. "Your dad, I mean. His eyes, his cheeks, his lips." Dave looks down and Maisie frowns. 

"Everyone says I look like him but no one has ever rattled off the ways I look like him." Maisie laughs nervously. "Anyway I have a lot of homework. So I better get going." As soon as she was away from him Haley went up to Dave.

"I didn't touch her Haley." He was very defensive. "I just talked to her."

"You had an affair with my husband, created her, and then I adopted her...it was hard at first, but I love her." Haley smiles. "I knew he wasn't all in with you, no matter how you felt about him, but when Spence came along I knew...he was all in." Dave's jaw clenched. "So you see it too." Haley scoffed. "Jack hadn't been born then but I saw it, so I made him choose: me or the job, a.k.a Spencer. He chose to remain where he could be with Spencer." She sniffed, her emotions getting the better of her. "I never hated you. I hated what you had done. And, yes, I pushed you out of her life because I was afraid. I was afraid that whatever it was that was between you two would resurface if you were a part of her life." She looks down. "Instead he just moved on to Spencer..."

"I could've had him one last time in 1991, you know?" He looked Haley dead in the eye. "We kissed when I told him I was retiring, he told me it would be a one time thing to say 'goodbye'. I couldn't. Even though it'd mean the world to me." Haley started to cry, and so did he. "We shouldn't have fought..." He looks at Maisie. "maybe if I hadn't gotten pregnant...who's to say? But I know this: I still love him, with everything in my body, and if he were to ask me to date him tomorrow I'd bite off his hand but he's not...he loves his little genius." he let out a snort. "I hate him for that..."

"Aaron or Spencer?"

"Aaron...Spencer...both...I don't know..." His heart feels like a stone sinking to the bottom of his feet. "Myself, if I'm being totally honest."

They sat like that watching proceedings for a good hour. It unnerved Aaron to see both his exes being so chummy. 

"Hey daddy, what do you think of my major?" Maisie's eyes found his and broke him out of the daydream of the worst case that they could be talking about.

"I'm just happy you're happy, baby girl." he pulled her close and eyed Dave, he knew he didn't want her when Dave had first told him. But if they'd decided to talk to Maisie about it, it would really hurt his relationship with her. 

She pulled out of the hug and looked he dad in the eye. "That guy you were always talking about: Dave? He seems a little weird around me. Like he's obsessed with me. Daddy, it scared me. He was listing off all the features I share with you and it creeped me out. Can you talk to him for me?" Aaron nodded, anything for his little girl. 

He pulled Dave to the side, "you need to cool it with Maisie. She was pretty weirded out when you started talking about her features." Dave gulped a little. "Talk to her if you want to, but be reasonable. Get to know her. She's a beautiful girl with many interests."

"Don't fucking tell me what she is. I carried her for 9 months when you didn't even want her born." Dave's hurt now and he's trying to wound Aaron anyway he can think of. "Does she know? Does she know her daddy wanted her dead when he found out about her existence? I'll bet not. Back off me Aaron..." And with that Dave turned on his heels and stormed out of the bullpen. He sobbed in the elevator, he really hadn't meant to go that far.


	4. Desperately Seeking Maisie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maisie goes missing just as David is ready to put his plan to win Aaron back into motion. All too willing to put his life on hold to help his daughter David goes along with the plan to go to Scotland and look for Maisie. But at Craig Na Dun something utterly mysterious happens to Aaron.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing but Maisie.
> 
> Here's where the plot of this fic and "If I never went to Scotland..." merge and we see the plot from the team's POV.

When he wasn’t working David obsessively made his basement ready for his plan. His neighbours had been wondering what the hammering, sawing, and drilling had been about for months. 

Aaron got Haley’s blessing and began a relationship with Spencer in earnest. They’d started rooming together on cases, when Dave was invited over for dinner he noticed Spencer’s toothbrush in Aaron’s bathroom, the bookshelf started to heave with the amount of books Aaron had bought for Spencer, and Dave hated them for it.

Months passed and soon the happy couple made the announcement that they were expecting a baby. That was the final straw for Dave and he had started to make his basement ready for his plan. 

He was ready to walk into the bullpen and put his plan into action but Aaron pulled him to the side, “We’re going to Scotland.”

“You and Spencer? A vacation?” Dave asked a very innocent question but it was undoubtedly tinged with venom. Aaron looked at him.

“No. The whole team. I pulled you to the side because it’s concerning Maisie.” Dave tilted his head slightly, now Aaron had his attention. “She’s missing.”

“Wait, what are you doing about this? She could be dead, Aaron! Why aren’t we on that jet now?” Dave was pacing now.

“Because I only just found out and I spoke to Strauss to get permission to go there. You’re the first person I’ve told since Strauss...so don’t get all self-righteous on me now.” He narrowed his eyes as his phone rang. Picking it up he glared at Dave. “Hotchner.”

“Daddy?” A very scared little boy was on the other line. “Daddy, are you okay?”

Aaron snapped his head up. “Jack? Jack where is mommy?” Jack just sobbed on the other end of the phone. “Jack? Jack, please tell me where your mommy is.”

“I just woke up and wondered why mommy didn’t wake me up so I went to find her and she...she’s lying by the door. She looks like she’s sleeping but I can’t wake her up daddy...I’m scared.” 

Aaron didn’t need to hear anything else he ran out of the building and into his car, speeding in his haste to get to his son. He didn’t know who killed Haley but he’d find out. Even if it took years.

After bringing Jack with him to the office he had told him about his sister, of course Jack had asked if the man who had hurt mommy had taken Maisie, but Aaron assured him that there’s no reason to think this.

After telling Jack that he needed to find Maisie and Jack needed to stay here with his aunt Jess the boy finally calmed down and told his dad to ‘go get the bad man who took away Maisie’.

On the jet the whole team was very subdued. Even Garcia was there. Aaron held Spencer close and rubbed his slightly protruding belly with a grim expression. Dave stared at the two lovers with fire in his eyes. 

When they arrived in Scotland they went to the hotel that Maisie had been staying at, a “Mrs Baird’s bed and breakfast” and combed the room that she had been staying at. Nothing came up but a scribbled note on the hotel’s headed paper that said “Craig Na Dun, standing stones (henge)”. 

Aaron closed his eyes. Knowing his daughter only too well and knowing she wouldn’t have been able to resist the standing stones that most tourists didn’t know about would only draw into the path of someone about to kidnap her. 

The team all went downstairs and asked Mrs Baird about the henge.

“Oh, aye. The lass seemed very taken wi highland culture so I told her about the stones at Craig Na Dun.” Mrs Baird was very forthcoming. “She asked a lot of questions about them, rituals mostly and I told her the Grahams have been calling the dances for years. She said she was going to try there on Beltane, to see the ritual I mean, but today is beltane and she is missing so something must have happened to her.” Mrs Baird was looking at Aaron very sympathetically. “I’m sure the police will do all they can to find yer lass mr Hotchner.”

Mrs Baird had offered the whole team rooms while they searched for Maisie. And given that it was almost nightfall they all gladly accepted. Spencer pulled Aaron into a hug as soon as they were alone. “We’ll find her baby. Don’t worry.” But Aaron couldn’t help but worry. If Maisie couldn’t be found then he could never go to his grave peacefully. 

In the morning the whole team made their way to the Police Scotland Inverness station and enquired if they knew about Maisie’s fascination with Craig Na Dun, they did not but the team requested a uniformed escort to the place and for it to be cordoned off while they combed the area.

Derek and JJ were looking to the stones when Derek found something he recognised. “Hey Hotch!” Both agents came over, a piece of fabric in Derek’s hands,”Isn’t this the shawl you got Maisie for her 18th birthday?” Aaron falls to his knees and the uniformed police officer picks him up and takes him back to the car. 

Back at the station the officers give Hotch a well sugared tea to calm him down but he can’t stop staring at Masie’s shawl that he had lovingly picked out for her 18th birthday party, or staring at his pregnant boyfriend. 

On the way back to Mrs Baird’s Aaron shocks the rest of them by saying that he’s going to go to Craig Na Dun and see if he can find more clues. 

At the stones Aaron closes his eyes and looks down as he starts to hear a faint buzzing. He can’t shake off the significance of the buzzing and reaches out to touch the biggest stone, his mind constantly on Maisie. 

The team, who had followed him, watch from a distance as he reaches out and then gasp as he disappears before their very eyes. 

**Author's Note:**

> Short and sweet. What do you guys think? Please do leave feedback, I promise I take it really well.


End file.
